From a shamanic trance to death. Discussion on Marylin Monroe’s intimate notes, letters and poems

Abstract

The paper puts forward a thesis that Marilyn Monroe, regarded as a culture icon of the 20th century, has a lot in common with a shaman, because she experiences alternative states of consciousness under the influence of psychoanalytical sessions. There is an association between what is happening in the mind of a shaman who is in a trance and the soul of an actress – regarded as the idol of collective imagination – who is regularly psychoanalyzed. In her poems, letters and intimate notes, whose style is very psycho-biographic, Marilyn Monroe gives an account of her auto-analysis, talks about a growing feeling of being different from others and writes down the moments of shamanic elation. By writing she expresses all things which fail to be expressed in other way, and her own notes are the post-notes of the trance states of the shaman. Nevertheless, she does not realize the fact that psychoanalysis is having a destructive effect on her life, and that it pushes her towards death, and finally kills her.